Kickass Torrents shut down, owner arrested....US, Poland, Ukraine, Apple and Facebook in the mix (my thoughts)
So for those following trends in globalization you are probably aware of the TPP and TTIP and the attempts to create a global legal system that supersedes any sovereign legal authority. This trend makes today's news that bit torrent site Kickass Torrents has been shut down all the more interesting.
The US government, with the assistance of Poland, Apple and Facebook arrested Artem Vaulin, a 30-year-old from Ukraine who apparently operated the Kickass Torrents site (which ranks as the 70th most visited site on the Internet). The irony? Apparently, Artem was buying things on iTunes and it was part of how they tracked down his identity. They used Facebook to capture his IP address then iTunes to link the IP address to his real life identity.
So the world's biggest "pirate" essentially got caught because he was legally purchasing content.
As many know, The Pirate Bay was wiped from the Internet in 2014, although has come back to life since then, albeit as a shadow of its former self.
My Take On All This
As a producer of content that could be pirated you'd think I'd be against pirating right? You'd be surprised that I both am, and am not.
I tend to believe that people don't pirate so they can "rip off" artists. Rather, I believe most people pirate because they can't afford to buy the content otherwise. There have been studies to show this is likely the case.
In my The Fall of Man series the notion that society is breaking down is a salient theme and part of that process is class warfare.
Pirating to me is nothing but the offshoot of said class warfare on a global scale. As goods and services are priced based on what "the haves" can afford, "the have nots" are forced into stealing.
Price is not Price
People will say "Come on now, pay the $10-20 bucks for the movie or book."
But what is $10?
To someone making $300,000 a year, it's probably one minute of their time?
To someone making $100,000 a year, it's maybe five minutes.
To someone making $20,000 a year, it's an hour.
To someone in China it's maybe one, two or three DAYS of work.
Or let's look at it differently. Let's image we lived in a world where cost was means adjusted. So rather than things having an absolute value, they were priced relative to one's earnings.
So if someone was making $20k and paying $10 for a movie, the person making $500k would be charged $250 dollars for that same movie. In this world the purchase of the movie would impact them equally.
So that person making $500k, if they watched 10 movies in a year, would end up paying $2,500.
You'd quickly find they would start pirating movies also (assuming all goods and services were means adjusted).
Now, I'm fully aware this is an economic model that would never be considered (although it's not as crazy as you might think), I simply propose it as a way of understanding why poor people turn to pirating. In fact, they have even greater incentive. Unlike the rich person who has disposable income, the poor often don't. So they have to choose between new shoes for their kids or having cable television.
The Solution?
The government's solution is to go after the enablers of pirating.
I can appreciate how many would think this is a logical course of action. No one should be stealing, so stopping that is a good thing, right? Law and order.
The problem is that it doesn't address the real issue and as such the problem will keep coming back. The real problem is poverty. A secondary issue, I believe, is also predatory pricing by many content providers (we're all getting ripped off by cable providers, which is why people are cutting the cord even if they could technically afford cable.)
If you had a society / world where people were making a good living, had job security and had disposable income, I believe they would gladly pay for content. Until then though, pirating will continue.
And let's appreciate even further the irony. The US bankers (the .001%) crashed the global economy, destroyed TRILLIONS in wealth around the world, and not only did no one go to jail but the government bailed them out using taxpayer money.
We live in a system where "breaking the law" is okay, but only if you're rich or a corporation. If you are poor and stealing an episode of Game of Thrones, then heaven and hell must be moved to address this erosion of civil society and the capitalistic marketplace.
Nowhere To Hide
As the Internet slowly gets more and more regulated and controlled by global corporations and governmental departments, they will launch their war on torrenters. And just like the war on drugs, it will be a pointless black hole that money and resources are dumped into with no results to show for it other than criminalizing the poor.
As a producer of content you'd think I'd be against people stealing my work. But I'm not (not completely anyway). I believe those who can afford to pay are happy to do so. Those who cannot, I'm glad they got to experience my work, regardless. If I could, I'd happily sell my work based on a price tied to someone's income or net worth. The millionaire could pay me $50 for one of my books and the poor guy could pay me 25 cents, I would love that model.
I don't see the torrenter as a criminal, rather, I see poverty as the real crime. I'd rather see a world where people felt they were financially stable and didn't need to steal content. Unfortunately, poverty seems to only be increasing, not decreasing.
With the emerging cast system we're creating in the West, this trend of black markets (which is essentially what pirating is) will only continue to grow. The only real question is how aggressive will the government be in response?
So the world's biggest "pirate" essentially got caught because he was legally purchasing content.
As many know, The Pirate Bay was wiped from the Internet in 2014, although has come back to life since then, albeit as a shadow of its former self.
My Take On All This
As a producer of content that could be pirated you'd think I'd be against pirating right? You'd be surprised that I both am, and am not.
I tend to believe that people don't pirate so they can "rip off" artists. Rather, I believe most people pirate because they can't afford to buy the content otherwise. There have been studies to show this is likely the case.
In my The Fall of Man series the notion that society is breaking down is a salient theme and part of that process is class warfare.
Pirating to me is nothing but the offshoot of said class warfare on a global scale. As goods and services are priced based on what "the haves" can afford, "the have nots" are forced into stealing.
Price is not Price
People will say "Come on now, pay the $10-20 bucks for the movie or book."
But what is $10?
To someone making $300,000 a year, it's probably one minute of their time?
To someone making $100,000 a year, it's maybe five minutes.
To someone making $20,000 a year, it's an hour.
To someone in China it's maybe one, two or three DAYS of work.
Or let's look at it differently. Let's image we lived in a world where cost was means adjusted. So rather than things having an absolute value, they were priced relative to one's earnings.
So if someone was making $20k and paying $10 for a movie, the person making $500k would be charged $250 dollars for that same movie. In this world the purchase of the movie would impact them equally.
So that person making $500k, if they watched 10 movies in a year, would end up paying $2,500.
You'd quickly find they would start pirating movies also (assuming all goods and services were means adjusted).
Now, I'm fully aware this is an economic model that would never be considered (although it's not as crazy as you might think), I simply propose it as a way of understanding why poor people turn to pirating. In fact, they have even greater incentive. Unlike the rich person who has disposable income, the poor often don't. So they have to choose between new shoes for their kids or having cable television.
The Solution?
The government's solution is to go after the enablers of pirating.
I can appreciate how many would think this is a logical course of action. No one should be stealing, so stopping that is a good thing, right? Law and order.
If you had a society / world where people were making a good living, had job security and had disposable income, I believe they would gladly pay for content. Until then though, pirating will continue.
And let's appreciate even further the irony. The US bankers (the .001%) crashed the global economy, destroyed TRILLIONS in wealth around the world, and not only did no one go to jail but the government bailed them out using taxpayer money.
We live in a system where "breaking the law" is okay, but only if you're rich or a corporation. If you are poor and stealing an episode of Game of Thrones, then heaven and hell must be moved to address this erosion of civil society and the capitalistic marketplace.
Nowhere To Hide
As a producer of content you'd think I'd be against people stealing my work. But I'm not (not completely anyway). I believe those who can afford to pay are happy to do so. Those who cannot, I'm glad they got to experience my work, regardless. If I could, I'd happily sell my work based on a price tied to someone's income or net worth. The millionaire could pay me $50 for one of my books and the poor guy could pay me 25 cents, I would love that model.
I don't see the torrenter as a criminal, rather, I see poverty as the real crime. I'd rather see a world where people felt they were financially stable and didn't need to steal content. Unfortunately, poverty seems to only be increasing, not decreasing.
With the emerging cast system we're creating in the West, this trend of black markets (which is essentially what pirating is) will only continue to grow. The only real question is how aggressive will the government be in response?
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